In the Woods
by AnitaGrace
Summary: A oneshot. Zuko is traveling alone and is beseeched by a woman in the forest to help her in return for food. When they make a bet and the deal goes awry, Zuko faces his fate. No pairings.


Zuko had been traveling for a long while. The desert-like land he had been journeying through had given way to a deep forest; the path he followed was dirt and ill-traveled. He had not seen anyone in a long time and he had not eaten in even longer.

His ostrich horse plodded on, wearily lifting each large foot and setting it down again. Zuko's stomach growled and he clutched it. If he didn't find food soon, he'd be in very bad straits.

It was just his luck that he turned a bend in the road and came across a well. It sat in a small, man-made clearing interestingly devoid of overgrowing plant life. The dirt road came upon it, widened for it, and then moved on. At least he would be able to get some water. Without food, he would suffer.

Without water, he would die.

Zuko stopped his mount and dropped down, his knees barely keeping from collapsing underneath him. When he straightened, a voice, loud and near, surprised him.

"Well, hello, young man! Just my luck, a good soul to help carry this bucket back to my home."

Zuko jumped around, his hand going defensively to his broadswords, his body crouching down into a fighting position. He returned to his normal stance, however, once he got a good look at the speaker, but still he kept his hand at his hip.

A woman of middle age stood before him, dressed in rustic attire. Her worn green dress came down to just above a pair of sturdy brown shoes. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun on her head and her mouth smiled jovially at him.

It was her eyes that set off an alarm in his brain. They were crinkled and old, setting off her smoother face peculiarly. They were a deep forest green and looked at him with what seemed to be a sarcastic question, an eyebrow raised expectantly. It seemed to be asking what he was waiting for.

Zuko gave a short bow, his hand still at his swords. He spoke in a voice that could barely be considered polite, and yet it still was.

"I am not the sort of man you would want following you to your home," he warned her.

The eyebrow stretched higher and her mouth pursed ironically. "That's for me to decide," she said, heaving the heavy bucket into his hands. "So you just follow me, and we'll see if you're worthy or not."

That said, she began walking away, down a path through the woods to the side of the well that Zuko had not noticed before. Zuko's eyes widened in surprise as he nearly dropped the bucket. It tipped precariously and he scrambled to keep it upright, his swords forgotten.

"You better not drop that, young man," the woman's voice warned unseen from the thick forest. "Or you'll be filling it up and carrying it along yourself."

Zuko regained his balance and glared into the thicket.

"I _am_ carrying it myself," he muttered darkly.

"But you didn't have to fill it as well!"

Zuko stared into the forest. The woman's voice sounded as though it had come from quite a distance, and he could not see hide nor hint of her. _How had she heard me?_

"Come on," he told the ostrich horse. They followed her into the forest, one hand holding the reins, the other holding the bucket of water.

OoOoOoO

Once Zuko finally made it to the woman's house he felt a huge relief wash over him. The path had been an annoying long and twisted path. Zuko was convinced he had turned on himself and had been walking in the direction from which he had come at some points, but he had been unable to tell, due to the fact that the sun was completely hidden by the leaves of the trees, making it impossible to determine his position.

The woman was standing in front of her home, a small cottage in a small clearing in what had to be the middle of a gigantic forest. She waited next to a stump with an axe cleaved in its center, her hands on her hips.

"That took you quite a while," she declared, her eyebrow still raised. Perhaps it was afraid of her nose, Zuko mused. "One would think you don't know where you're going, despite the path being laid out in front of you."

"I know where I'm going," Zuko growled. He put the bucket down heavily in front of her. "I know my path." He knew it was a bit dramatic, but he didn't just mean the path through the forest, he meant his path through life.

"Really?" she asked. "And you followed it closely did you?" Zuko nodded. It seemed this woman was also able to speak in riddles. "And it's lead you here. To me. So why don't you make yourself useful and chop some wood? It's obviously what you were meant to do."

She smirked irritatingly, flinging his own double meanings back on him.

"Listen, _ma'am_," he had difficulty saying the word. "If you knew who I really am, you wouldn't want me chopping your wood or carrying your bucket or doing anything anywhere _near_ you."

"Really?" she asked again, this time more curiously than frustratingly. She started at him for a long time. Her eyes seemed to bore into his shell, crack at his façade.

"How about we make you a deal, hm?" she suggested after long last. "You spend the day here, working and fixing and just generally helping me out, and at the end of the day, I take a guess as to "who you are" and we'll see if my judgement's really so off."

Zuko snorted. "And why would I want to do that?"

The woman smiled, her tongue tucked in her cheek. "Fine, we'll make it a bet. You do all that, and if I'm wrong, I'll give you all the food and water you can carry – you and that horse thing of yours – _and_ I'll give you anything else you want. One thing."

Zuko turned his head, looking away from the woman.

"You couldn't give me what I really want," he said quietly.

The woman shrugged. "If you don't want to take the chance…" she trailed off, leaving the end of the statement hanging in the air and started walking back into her house.

"Wait!" Zuko called out. He needed the food; he needed the water. He wouldn't survive without it, who knew just how long the path through the forest really was?

The woman stopped, waiting expectantly.

"Fine," Zuko consented. "I'll do it."

OoOoOoO

The day passed by quickly, the ostrich eating grass and plants from the forest floor, the woman humming as she neatened her home unnecessarily, and Zuko chopping wood, weeding the garden and basically doing whatever the woman told him to do. It wasn't easy and he frequently messed up, pulling up vegetables instead of weeds, missing the block of wood he was trying to hit (or even the stump) completely. The woman only corrected him, suggesting help and to never do it again.

Around midday she called him over to the front of the house. Handing him some bread and cheese, she gave him fifteen minutes break and then sent him on his way working. He took the food with a lot of scorn and a little relish and spent all fifteen minutes resting. She worked him like a dog.

Finally, about an hour before dusk, the woman called him in.

"So, are you ready to lose our little bet?" she asked him, dusting flour covered hands on her apron.

Zuko narrowed his eyes at her, daring her to trifle with him. His back was breaking, his muscles were sore and he was quite sure he had never felt so tired at the end of a day before in his life.

The woman's eyebrow quirked and she grinned lazily.

"So, let me think…" she tapped her chin and gazed upwards while Zuko waited with bated breath. He hadn't allowed himself to think all day about this moment. They hadn't spoken at all except for curt instructions and barely polite remarks, but he worried all the same. If she guessed close enough, his honor would only allow him to admit defeat and walk away empty-handed. And if he lost, dignity would not allow him to accept charity. A deal was a deal, gambling or not, and if he lost he would walk away and take nothing with him.

"I know." The woman turned her frank stare on him and it was like being hit with a boulder. For the first time all day, her eyebrows were perfectly level, her face was not smiling or in any way kind and her mouth was set in a firm line. Everything about her suddenly seemed older and more powerful, and Zuko swore the sky darkened and the breeze became stronger.

"You are in exile, cast out from your place by those you trusted the most. Your way of life is over, it can never be returned to, and yet you cling to a childish dream all the same." Her voice was like mountains and monsoons, crashing over him and leaving him cold. "You are full of honor, but you attempt the most dishonorable things. Life hangs in the balance and you allow your selfishness and childishness to sway your judgement. You are almost a man, yet little more than a boy. You know the path you should take and the path others want you to take and because of blind loyalties, fear and simple stupidity, you choose the wrong one. There was a voice of reason in your life, but you cast it aside with little thought and much pain. You are torn between a life of greatness and a life of depravity. Your actions in the weeks to come will determine the fate of all whose lives are intertwined with yours and all the lives intertwined with theirs. If you do not change your ways and choose well, the delicate spider's web will break and it will all be your fault."

Zuko stumbled back, his eyes wide. The woman lowered her chin, her dark eyes bearing into his, searing through and cutting him in half. The wind picked up and began battering at his back.

He tripped and fell backwards, his head hitting the ground and his hat rolling away. When he looked over, he saw he had stumbled over the axe, lying prone in the grass. Lightening broke out over the sky and the glare shone in the gleam of the blade, sharp and deadly.

Zuko jumped up, running for the other side of the clearing. Grabbing the ostrich horse's reins, he leapt on its back and kicked it forward.

Zuko tore down the path through the woods, branches clipping his cheeks and snagging his clothes. The ostrich horse ran, Zuko's heels thumping its sides in panic, his hands clutching the reins so tightly.

They burst onto the main path, the well standing eerily in the dark. Zuko turned to the left and thundered down the way he had been traveling. It was only a short while later that he broke through the forest and onto a field.

The sun glowed calm and peaceful in the middle of the sky over the golden field. Workers and farmers looked up at the sight of a man breathing heavily, an ostrich horse thumping its feet nervously and both eyeing the calm wood in expectance.

The man kicked his beast on, and they made their way to the fields, the sun glaring brightly.

An-po, a man in his late forties approached the younger man on horseback, his scythe held in readiness for any sort of attack.

"Hello, there, stranger," An-po called out cautiously. "What have yeh?"

"Th-there's a witch," the man stuttered and pointed back to the trees. "There's a witch in that forest. She made me work all day and then she…" the man glanced back at the trees in curiosity and panic, his eyes wide, wondering and frightened. "… she knew about me. She knew who I was, she knew what had happened to me, she knew…"

The strange man touched what looked to be a burn scar on his face, his eyes still scanning the forest.

"She said if I worked all day, she'd guess. If she was right, I'd win. If she was wrong, I'd do all the work for nothing."

An-po squinted up at the man. "What'd she offer yeh?"

"Food, water… and anything I wanted."

An-po thought for a minute, glanced over at the trees, and spat on the ground.

"Nothin fer it," he said. "Yeh've met Hanh."

The man turned back sharply. "Hanh?"

"Yep." An-po kicked dirt over where he spat. "That's the spirit of them there trees." He gestured with his scythe.

The man looked dubious. "You mean to tell me I've spent the entire day in the company of a forest spirit who lives in a cottage and needs help drawing water from a well?"

"Ain't no well, ain't no forest," An-po shrugged. "Those trees there ain't naught but few thick and scatter few more wide. Ain't no well, or house or anything, but a spirit what likes to play jokes on travelers and the young'uns. And look." An-po stretched a craggy finger to the sky where the sun shone at its peak. "It ain't nothin' but midday. Noonin. Yeh can't've been workin' all day, cause there _ain't been_ all day. Yeh got tricked well and good by Hanh and yeh best be thankful yeh didn't get it worse. Seemed be she didn't like yeh much."

With that cryptically said, An-po walked off to finish working in the fields.

Zuko stared after the old man, his words ringing mockingly in his ear. Was it a trick? A joke played by the village? Was the man insane? Was he in on it with the woman?

Zuko turned his ostrich horse around and went to inspect the trees. Walking along the border, he soon found himself back where he started, the trees being no deeper than a few trees deep and only a little wider.

He turned his ostrich horse back around and walked it down through the fields. Hands stopped their work to whisper to their neighbors and point at him. Their words barely touched Zuko as he passed by, his mind refreshingly blank and peaceful.

OoOoOoO

Later that night, as he went prepared to settle down for the night against a tree a little ways off the side of the road, Zuko made a shocking discovery.

It was when he pulled his saddlebags off the ostrich horse. They seemed much heavier and bulkier than he remembered and when he sat them down on the ground and opened them, he found them to be full of food and water. Strong, durable goods like rice and bread and feed for his horse were accompanied by dried fruits and smoked meats. Water flasks full of the sweetest water Zuko had ever tasted were still cool to the touch and taste.

In one pocket, Zuko found a note folded up on cream paper. He opened it, his callused fingers scratching against the quality paper. It was really the note that convinced him it was all real, so haunting and scary, yet reassuring. It read:

_We made a bargain, and yes, you lost. All this is merely because I liked what I saw. You will choose the right path because your honor will allow no less. _

_Hanh_

Zuko folded the note with shaking fingers and replaced it into his bag. He suddenly felt very tired, his day having been much longer than usual. With a speed quicker than normal, he fell into a light sleep, his dreams much more peaceful than his day.

OoOoOoO

The next morning, Zuko left incense, a lock of his hair and a flower at a roadside shrine. A breeze played with the perfumed smoke as it rose into the air after he left and the small ember of the incense crackled.


End file.
